


Not a River in Egypt

by ughasif



Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: F/M, I’m going to be straight up with you, S3, canon compliant linked chapters so far, is it that my Rory is more self-aware than canon Rory, not even God in his heaven knows where this is going, or does writing as a medium make it easier/more necessary to show thought processes, which is to say self-aware at all
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:34:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25219354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ughasif/pseuds/ughasif
Summary: Don’t hesitate to leave a comment if you have anything to say! Prompts very welcome.
Relationships: Rory Gilmore/Jess Mariano
Comments: 6
Kudos: 28





	1. Fortune

**Author's Note:**

> Don’t hesitate to leave a comment if you have anything to say! Prompts very welcome.

_ Fortune favors the brave _ , Rory thinks when she steps into the Black-White-Read Bookshop, and sees Jess absorbed in a yellow-bound  _ Middlemarch _ he’s pulled from the shelves. She wasn’t brave at Sookie’s wedding when she returned to Dean’s side while the  taste of Jess lingered in her mouth like an unfading flush, and she hasn’t been brave every day since, and fortune has scorned her.  __

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“Honey,” Lorelai says, gesturing to the rows of bookshelves with her head as she catches Rory glancing in Jess’s general vicinity a moment too long. She can’t fault her mother’s intuition but she also can’t prevent the flash of irritation she feels whenever Lorelai reacts to RoryandJess. “Chop, chop. Read, read. Buy, buy. I’m not getting any younger over here.” 

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“Hold your horses, Mother Gothel,” Rory grumbles, joining her mother in an aisle and seeing Jess keep reading without so much as turning a hair in her periphery. 

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Lorelai fishes the list of the summer reading books Chilton’s sent home out of the shapeless tote bag that says  _ Kirk’s Coats and Totes  _ in blocky graphic print on the side. In retrospect, they really shouldn’t have spent so long trying to convince Kirk coats wouldn’t sell in the middle of June. Maybe then Jess would have left by the time they got to the bookstore. 

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Rory’s never shopped for paper-clips as fast as she shops for books today but Lorelai is Lorelai and she takes her sweet time. 

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“ _ The Age of Innocence _ ,” she reads. “Oh, that age better last until at least 25 or Headmaster Charleston and I will have  words.” 

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“Must you humiliate me in my sanctuary?” Rory says, hyper-aware of Jess’s presence. 

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"Yes, I must, you’re not safe from me anywhere.  _ As You Like It _ ,” her mother continues, dropping the slip of a play into her bag. “I’d hope so.  _ The God of Small Things _ . Small things, small things… now why can’t I think of a saucy interpretation for that? And ‘God’—well, some men, dearest. What are you doing?” 

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Rory has confiscated the list from a concerned Lorelai. She finishes up in the space of a minute. She knows where every book in the store is, after all. 

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“See, we’re all done in time to go to Luke’s before I have to meet Dean,” she says brightly. 

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“Coffee,” Lorelai says like a man scoping out an oasis in the desert, concern vanishing. 

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“Coffee,” Rory affirms. 

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“This is why you’re the smart one,” Lorelai tells her, throwing an arm around her and squeezing. 

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“My genius tells me the list is supposed to be 12 books long,” Rory says. “We’ve only gotten 11.” 

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She feels dread settle in her stomach before she even flips the paper over. In 12 point Times New Roman, she sees  _ Middlemarch _ . 

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Lorelai lets her go. “Meet you outside of Luke’s, child prodigy mine?” 

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Rory half-smiles. Once Lorelai’s got coffee on the brain, God help whoever stands in her way. She accepts the bills her mother hands her, agrees to blow half of it on birth control and cigarettes like a good kid and makes her way toward the aisle Jess is—yes, still standing in. Still reading. Still reading  _ Middlemarch _ . 

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Rory pauses a few feet away from him. Then she swallows around the butterflies that have settled like a fist at the top of her throat and thinks,  _ Fortune favors the brave _ . 

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“Jess.” She meant to sound more polite-not-quite-stranger-asking-you-to-move. It comes out ex-friend-who-wants-you-wants-you-wants-you. Nevertheless, Jess looks at her for the first time in days and Rory catches her breath. “I need a copy of  _ Middlemarch _ too,” she says quickly, before she can say anything else. 

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Jess’s gaze is sharp. “Last copy.” 

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“Oh.” 

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He lets her flounder for a moment, then says, “You can have it if you want.” 

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“What’s the catch? I’m all out of first-born children but I can probably snag you a middle child or two. If the  _ Home Alone  _ franchise has taught me anything, it’s that no-one pays attention to those poor bastards.” 

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“Come here,” he says. 

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Rory takes too long to respond, frozen somehow, scared in the best and worst way. His mouth curves up at the corner. “I don’t bite,” he says. “But I’ll consider it if you really want me to.” 

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Rory frowns at him. “I have a boyfriend,” she says, moving closer.

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“And I have a Shane,” he responds. “Aren’t we lucky.”

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She can smell fresh pear shampoo, see the tiny curls plastered to his forehead. He must have just showered and this is when Rory fully accepts her status as an undignified head-over-heels hormonal teenager because the picture of herself in a shower with him that flashes unwanted through her mind makes her weak at the knees. She can feel tear-dropped tile against her back, cold and rigid, and Jess’s hips against hers, hot and mobile, and she needs it to stop right now because he’s right in front of her and they’re in public and her mom is waiting for her—and  _ Dean _ , she adds, trying to scourge up the shame she deserves for remembering so late. 

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“I wish you didn’t have her,” Rory says when the shame refuses to come just then. She’s vulnerable and weirdly honest right now, like the time her mom got drunk and told her about every sexual encounter she’d ever had, including one in the backseat of her car with a man who’d bullied her in middle school four months previously. Rory was nine and her dad had called to say he couldn’t afford to send child support just then and Lorelai had said, “Go to hell, Christopher,” in a steely voice and put Rory to bed and gone for the single neglected bottle of gin in the back of a kitchen cupboard too high for Rory to reach. She had come downstairs when she— _ felt  _ her mother crying, to make her Pop-Tarts and read  _ The Wind in the Willows  _ to her and when none of that worked, to just sit in the dark holding onto Lorelai’s Strawberry Shortcake pajama sleeve and hearing R-rated stories. 

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“She’s no Dorothea Brooke,” Jess says dryly. “That sounds more like someone else I know. Smart, misguidedly idealistic, sticking to a jealous douchebag who’s not her intellectual equal, just waiting for the day she’ll get the guts to—” 

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“That’s enough, Jess.”

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“Ring any bells?” He inquires. “It’s on the tip of my tongue—”

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“A Hartford bookstore will do,” she declares, making to turn away.

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He scoffs. “At least try, Gilmore. It would never be the same.” 

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“I know!” Rory snaps, leaning back and folding her arms across her chest with a huff. The 1985 edition with the best cover mocks her from where Jess holds it. 

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“No middle children required,” he tells her finally. “Just tell me what you think when you’re done. I won’t even ask for a blood oath.” 

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“You must be feeling generous.” 

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“I’m considering not doing everything in my power to ruin Taylor’s life for a few hours.” He raises his hands. “I know, I know, it’s drastic.”

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Rory gasps. “What have you become?” 

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He gives her the book, smiling at her. His fingers don’t just brush against hers; his hand slips under hers and he strokes the length of the back of her hand for one drawn-out second. Rory shivers infinitesimally. "Did you write in this?” She asks. 

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“Why don’t you?” He replies disarmingly. 

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Rory’s mind stutters at the idea. She has always kept her books pristine, it’s Jess who makes them unabashed in their cracked spines and the thinky notes in their margins. The metaphor is too obvious, makes her head ache: untouchable with Dean, then not, wanting to be touched by Jess all the time, everywhere. 

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“Maybe with post-its,” she says unconvincingly, rubbing her fingers over the worn, soft pages that flutter when she tips the book open. 

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He smiles again. “I gotta head out,” he says, nodding toward the window. Rory doesn’t turn, afraid to see Shane standing there. “Bye, Rory.” 

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He slips past her, smelling still of pears and nicotine and the old leather of his jacket, and Rory heads to the counter. 

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“I like that kid,” Polly says, ringing up her books and glancing toward the door Jess has just left through. 

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“You want to know a secret?” Rory asks after a pause.

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Polly looks at Stars Hollows’ angel leaning her elbows hesitantly against her counter, wanting to tell her secrets she can’t tell her mother. She takes pity on her. “Hit me.” 

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“Only because you’re a kindred spirit,” Rory says, smiles in her eyes. “I like him too,” she worries out through her teeth. 

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“I don’t doubt it, honey.” 

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	2. More Than All the Print

Dean tells her he loves her whenever he hangs up a call. She pulls Princess Leia’s “I know” on him when she can and he laughs politely and then leaves a pause where she’s expected to say the real thing. She always caves. She can’t handle the drama again. 

“When did you know you didn’t love Dad?” Rory asks her mother in the kitchen one night when she’s working through a math problem and a carton of beef chilli dry from Al’s Pancake World. 

“I did love him,” Lorelai says, looking surprised. 

“But not enough to marry him.” 

“I wasn’t ready. Rory, where is this coming from?” 

“Was that all?” 

Lorelai just looks at her, her lips thin. “Maybe it wasn’t. It was a long time ago, I don’t know, I wasn’t exactly keeping a diary when I was working full-time with a newborn baby!” She pauses briefly. “You’re thinking about Jess again.” 

“I never stopped," Rory mumbles. She thinks about telling Jess she loves him. The thought scares her, not because it would be a lie but because of how much it would be the truth, how much she would need him to say it back. And would he say it back? She can’t see it. If she could see it, she would have broken up with Dean a long time ago. 

Lorelai is panicking. “So what does this mean?” 

“Can we talk about it later?” Rory’s standing up, carton of beef chilli dry in one hand.

“Let’s talk about it now.” Lorelai stands too. “Where are you going?” 

“Just out.”

She’s out of the house before her mother can say another word. The hum of cicadas surrounds her, settling her nerves. It’s the time that books call the cat’s light, shadows lengthening and street lights flickering on. Miss Patty calls to her from the door of her dance hall to mediate a conflict between her and Taylor on the Fourth of July performance. 

“How's it going, Taylor?” Rory takes a bite out of her chilli dry before she glimpses Jess and chokes. 

“My, my. How flattering." He moves to thump her on the back. 

“I’m fine,” she splutters, straightening and glaring at him through burning eyes. “What are you doing here?” 

“I want this young man to set off the fireworks,” Taylor says with his usual efficient pomposity. “He has obviously turned over a new leaf and is willing to step up and do his part for our fine town—”

Rory snorts in unison with Miss Patty. She’s unaware that Jess’s hand has slipped from her back to her waist, and that this has only happened because she’s leaning unconsciously into his side. Unaware, that is, until she’s all too aware, and his fingers are sliding down, brushing the strip of skin between her tank top and her jeans, resting on her denim-clad hip with a gentle, insistent pressure. 

Taylor and Miss Patty are so busy arguing that they don’t notice. Rory tilts her head toward Jess. “Give me the short version.” 

“I just wanna set the fireworks off but Miss Patty doesn’t seem to believe me.” 

“Mm-hm. How did you bring Taylor around?” 

“I raked all the yards in his neighborhood. He followed me around with a magnifying glass looking for—ask him, bombs? Then I brought him a twenty I found on the ground asking him to return it to its rightful owner.” 

“Well, I hope you thanked Luke’s wallet for its contribution to your new reputation.”

“If you can stand to have a Fourth of July without the performance my girls are putting on,” Miss Patty is saying in a raised voice, her tone indicating she thinks there’s no chance of this. “Then by all means, let him set off the fireworks!” 

“Patty, it is too good to be true that he reformed without the state-of-the-art rehabilitation center I proposed at the first town meeting after he moved here! We have to give him a second chance!” 

Rory steps forward. Jess’s arm falls to his side, his hand sliding into his pocket in the same motion. “You should let Jess do it, Miss Patty,” she says. “I’ll stick to his side like a leech. He won’t get away with tampering with  _ anything _ . Right, Jess?” 

He widens his eyes at her innocently, a smirk playing around his mouth. “Yes, ma’am.” 

Miss Patty surrenders. “It’s your funeral, you two.” 

“Thank you for making her see reason,” Taylor says to Rory when Miss Patty’s walked away. “Sometimes I just don’t know what to do with that woman!” To Jess, he says in a tone of awed disbelief: “Keep up the fine work, young man.” 

Jess tilts his head in acknowledgment and Taylor leaves them alone, muttering something that sounds suspiciously like, “God works in mysterious ways.” 

“Not bad, Gilmore,” Jess offers and she glows.

“Long version now.” They’re leaving the dance hall together. 

“The new me freaks Luke out,” Jess explains. “I held open the door for him yesterday and he thought there was a booby trap on the other side so he made me go first. Got Kirk in to take a video. Nothing happened, he’s still not over it.” 

Rory pulls a flyer from her back pocket and hands it to him wordlessly. Jess looks down at it blankly. 

“ATTEND THE VIEWING OF MY LATEST SHORT FILM: FAILED EXPECTATIONS. TONIGHT 8:30 - 9:00 PM. DISCLAIMER: THE CONSENT OF FEATURED PARTIES HAS NOT BEEN OBTAINED. PLEASE TURN OVER FOR SNEAK PEEK.” 

The other side of the page features a still of Jess in the doorway. 

“Aw, geez, what the hell?” Jess exclaims. 

“My mom and I got front-row seats,” Rory says cheerfully. “I’m very excited to see how he’s going to turn that—what? 10-second?—video into a 30-minute film.”

“This town is a freakshow,” Jess mutters. “Wait till I get my hands on Kirk.” 

“But that would ruin everything you’ve worked so hard for! Luke would just yell at you like normal and you wouldn’t get the satisfaction of really getting under his skin.” 

“You make a sound argument,” he admits reluctantly. 

“Just have some beef chilli dry and accept your fate,” Rory urges, passing him the carton. The moment is just short of perfect. A summer twilight permeated with the sound of moms calling their kids back inside, her daisy-printed flip-flops hitting the road toward Luke’s diner, the honeyed spice of her favorite Chinese food, and Jess’s company. 

Then they near the diner and she looks up and sees Dean on the doorstep with his little sister. Her heart sinks like it’s been tossed into cartoon quicksand just as she senses Jess tense very slightly next to her. 

“Hi, Dean,” she says unhappily. 

“Yeah, hi, Dean,” Jess repeats. “Haven’t seen you since you ‘couldn’t have failed your algebra quiz because you studied for an hour.’ Jog my memory, how’d that argument work out for you?”

Dean ignores him, looking at Rory. “What’s going on?” He takes a step forward and she takes a step back, clutching Jess’s sleeve in an automatic motion she regrets instantly. Jess’s gaze swings around to her, suddenly sharp, and Dean says, “Don’t  _ touch  _ him.” 

“Sorry!” She releases his sleeve. “I’m sorry,” she repeats, her voice softening as she moves oward Dean, remorse for everything she’s doing to him washing over her in a wave. “It's not what you think. We were at Miss Patty’s and we were both heading here so we walked together.” 

“Why are you mad?” Clara asks Dean. 

“Yeah, what’s up with that?” Jess adds. 

“We agreed you wouldn’t see him anymore,” Dean bites out to Rory.

Rory closes her eyes, feeling Jess’s gaze boring into the back of her head. She already knows the tentative camaraderie between them that she has been rebuilding since he gave her  _ Middlemarch  _ has broken down completely. “I didn’t go out on purpose to see him,” she mutters. “There wasn’t any other way.” 

“Sorry to impose,” Jess says behind her, blithely angry, and then he walks around the little party on the doorstep and into the diner. 

Rory blinks back tears. “Can we just go home?” She says to Dean. 

“Oh,  _ we _ ’re definitely going home. Come on,” Dean tells Clara, tugging her off the doorstep. 

Then they’re walking away and Rory knows already she’ll have to call him and tell him she loves him soon and it feels like the heaviest weight in the world. When she looks through the diner window, Jess’s gaze is on her like a touch, not a gentle brush of hands but a shaking of shoulders, ardent and inflamed for the sheer slip of a moment before he looks away. Walt Whitman whispers through her mind: “What is it that you express in your eyes? It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life.” 

Would Jess? Tell her he loves her? 


End file.
